PARENTING; Joy and Anticipation For Soldiers' Return Home

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: May 10, 2009

IN the next few weeks, the largest overseas deployment of the New Jersey National Guard since World War II is scheduled to come home, 2,850 soldiers returning to their loved ones. As head of the family support program for the Teaneck Armory, Master Sgt. Minnie Hiller-Cousins has to make sure those loved ones are mentally prepared for those soldiers.

''Put on your helmets!'' Sergeant Hiller-Cousins ordered the 50 wives and mothers who had come to a recent monthly family meeting at the armory. ''And keep those helmets on! Everyone must wear a helmet.''

Over the next half-hour, as the sergeant explained the services available to their returning soldiers -- job counseling, health care, therapy for post-traumatic stress -- the wives and mothers progressed from feeling very silly in the helmets to feeling very uncomfortable in them.

''Hot and sweaty,'' said Iris Walls, whose husband, Gregg, is completing his first.

''It makes your hair itchy,'' said Adriana Roldan, whose husband, John, is also coming to the end of a second tour.

''Yes, it is miserable,'' said Sergeant Hiller-Cousins, who knows firsthand, having herself done a tour of Iraq in 2004. ''You wear that helmet long enough, your neck will hurt. Your soldier's been wearing that helmet every day for the last year. That helmet was their life.''

The sergeant's lesson in empathy was not over. She gave several of the women yellow roses, then told them those may be the only roses they receive for a while. ''Soldiers in a combat zone, they forget to be sensitive,'' the sergeant said. ''It doesn't mean they're crazy, it means they're stressed out. When they get back to normal, you'll get your roses. Until then, if you need roses, give yourself roses.''

RETURNING soldiers will not be the only ones on edge. The last year has been long and exhausting for the families holding down the home front, often made tougher by the national economic collapse.

Although, by law, Guard members are guaranteed their jobs back, that is little solace if their employer goes out of business. National Guard members come from all walks of life, from stockroom workers at the now defunct Circuit City to stock brokers at the now defunct Bear Stearns.

The unemployment rate for combat veterans ages 18 to 25 in 2008 was 14.1 percent, compared with 11.6 for nonveterans that age, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Veronica Cobb's husband, Rahaman, is due home in a few weeks with no job to return to. ''We've got a mortgage, we've got four children, we're definitely concerned about him not having a job,'' said Mrs. Cobb, a bus driver. For 14 years, Mr. Cobb was a data operator for The Star-Ledger of Newark, but the paper downsized while he has been in Iraq. Mr. Cobb opted for a buyout, his wife said, because they feared he could lose his job in a subsequent layoff. He was going to leave the Guard, but if he cannot find work, he plans to re-enlist. ''I don't want that,'' Mrs. Cobb said. ''I need him home.''

Mrs. Walls's real estate business has nearly ground to a halt, and because her husband, Gregg, an accountant, has been deployed, she cannot work the extra hours she would like, to make up some of that lost income. Thursday nights, he would watch their two young children so she could stay late at her Manhattan office. ''You might get a rental walk in off the street,'' she said. Sunday is the big day for open houses. ''I couldn't always get a sitter.''

Their children, 4 and 7, are at the stage when they need a parent, she said. ''Even when I'm working, it's hard to focus, I'd always have to run back for them.''

''November to February was scary,'' Mrs. Walls said. ''I did almost no business.''

During her husband's first tour, Mrs. Jefferson, an assistant school librarian and the mother of five, got all the bills paid. This time, she has e-mailed her husband letting him know she is behind on many. ''I didn't want him coming home and being surprised,'' she said.

Jean Michele Moore's husband, Patrick, a construction company director, has spent the last 18 months away, first training at Fort Benning, Ga., then stationed in Iraq. Mrs. Moore has been balancing a demanding job as a sales trainer for a pharmaceutical company with caring for her stepson, Austin, 12, who has Asperger's syndrome.

She had lived with Austin about a year when his father was mobilized. ''Suddenly, I was a single parent for a child not my own,'' she said.

This is not an economy where people can afford to take their jobs lightly. ''I don't have the kind of job where it's O.K. to have a bad day,'' Mrs. Moore said. ''No matter how I feel, I have to be smiling.'' And smiling is not natural on those mornings when the baby sitter arrives at 6:30 to get Austin on the bus to his special needs school, so Mrs. Moore can race off to an early meeting.

STILL, at a time when so many Americans have lost jobs, these families count themselves lucky. Their soldiers have served their country and provided a dependable income with generous government benefits in exchange for this year of living dangerously.